Hand drawn or painted FDC (first day covers) have been done since the 1940s. Over the past few years I have begun combining my collection of comic character hand drawn sketches with FDCs. This blog is being maintained for the purpose of sharing my collection...

Friday, December 25, 2015

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer first appeared in 1939 in a booklet written by Robert L. May and published by Montgomery Ward...

Rudolph would gain immortality through the song written by Johnny Marks. Recorded by many artists through the years, the first commercially successful rendition was in 1949 by Gene Autry. Other artists include Bong Crosby, Spike Jones, Dean Martin, The Temptation, Burl Ives, The Jackson 5, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the list goes on...

Rudolph would gain further popularity in 1964 when Rankin/Bass Productions aired their stop-motion animated special on CBS television, which has never left the air-waves. The story follows a dejected Rudolph and Hermey the would be dentist elf who go on travels to help the misfit toys and their adventure with Yukon Cornelius and the dangerous abominable snowman "The Bumble"...

2014 marked the 75th anniversary of Rudolph and the 75th anniversary of the television special. A series of US postage stamps was released on November 6, featuring Rudolph and his friends. My favorite characters are Yukon Cornelius and the Bumble. I asked Jacob Chabot to draw the Bumble on the 2014 Rudolph Bumble first day cover...

Jacob Chabot is a cartoonist illustrator whose work has appeared in Nickelodeon Magazine, Savage Dragon, Marvel Comics and his own The Mighty Skullboy Army, from Dark Horse Comics. Skullboy was nominated for an Eisner Award in 20078 for Best Book for Teens...

Friday, December 18, 2015

Eryk Donovan is a comic book creator and illustrator. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, his work has been featured in Boom! Studios series Memetic, Thrillbent's series The House in the Wall and Super Mario Bros. 2 the Movie Sequel webcomic...

From Eryk's blog: "I make my drawings with the intention of the ink being the final work, not the pencils. If no-one ever sees my pencils I'm fine with that was long as they think my inks are sexy."

Since I didn't have any first day covers that related to the Boom Studios Memetic, I asked what his preference was, to which he quickly responded science fiction. When he noticed the Star Wars FDC that became his choice...

Donovan's lastest book with James Tynion IV (signed by both) from Boom! Studios - Cognetics

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Joe Eisma is the artist co-creator of the Eisner nominated and New York Times best selling series from Image Comics - Morning Glories. The story focuses on a group of students at the Morning Glories Academy, which hides sinister and deadly secrets. The series is written by Nick Spencer...

Eisma has also worked on Hoax Hunters, Existence 3.0 and Dynamo 5 from Image comics, Higher Earth from Boom! Studios and Cobra from IDW Publishing...

After a brief discussion Eisma chose to do Star Wars related sketch. If i had a Higher Learning or other educational related first day cover, I would have went with a character from Morning Glories.

His Darth Sidious captures the evil expression nicely...

Outside of artist alley Jelly Belly had a booth with 2 paintings made from jelly beans - Darth Vader and Yoda, while artist Kristen Cummings was working an a Batman. I don't know how she avoids eating the jelly beans while working. Cummings uses an acrylic drawing to serve as a guide to the final product. Cummings began working for Jelly Belly producing her first works in 2010..

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Royal Mail also had different postmarks for cancellations for different types of covers being produced. The Alliance Starbird cancel from Elstree, Borehamwood was used as the traditional first day postmark,

the Imperial cancel from Tallents House, Edinbrugh was used on the Prestige stamp book first day cover,

Millenium Falcon postmark used on the Vehicles medallion (PNC) cover

AT-AT walker used on the Battles medallion (PNC) cover

2013 - Dutch artist Stefan van Zoggel produced fantasy art showing stamps that might have been used in the Star Wars universe. The stamps were featured on the site Damn Cool Pictures.

van Zoggel used some very old stamp designs to bring these stamps to life. Although in the futuristic setting of Star Wars, there had to be a past on all of these planets where they had a more archaic form of sending messages.

Monday, December 14, 2015

2015 - my tribute to Wally Wood. I had just finished reading the Fantagraphics book Spawn of Mars and other Stories by Wally Wood, when I decided to attempt the above sketch, which was based on Wood's self-portrait from the story Rescued!..

Although I did not specifically follow Wood's work, I have always been a fan of science fiction and fantasy in any form. Reading these stories was a special treat for me in that I had a chance to step back in time and see what people were reading in the 1950's. The designs of the space suits, the Twilight Zone feel of each story.

Wood also provided work for MAD magazine, Marvel's Daredevil (he created the red suit!) and long time science fiction an fantasy stories for EC Comics.

Since I have always been a fan of science fiction, especially space travel..I endlessly watch any space movie good or bad. I can remember watching the John Glenn launch. I was in grade school. All of the students were brought into the auditorium, and a black and white TV was rolled onto the stage, so we could all watch history unfold. I dreamed of being an astronaut, and I still do...

While researching some retro rocket designs, I came across a ship that look similar to the one I drew. My thought was to have droplets of flame instead of a giant plume. Since it was October I was probably eating candy corn at the time, and like the idea...

When the 1977 Motion Pictures stamp was release I had written to several production companies to ask for a corner card envelope I could use to create a first day cover. I received responses from MGM, Disney, and Paramount. Besides their routine envelopes, Paramount sent this Star Trek the Motion Picture envelope, which thrilled me. The Star Trek movie would be released in 1979...

The official cachet from the Motion Picture Association of America - Committee for the Celebration of the Talkies. The reverse of the envelope contains the following text: The cachet depicts six landmarks films in the history of talking pictures: The Jazz Singer, first feature film with synchronized dialogue; Fantasia, optical stereo sound; The Robe, magnetic stereo sound; Oklahoma, six-track 70mm sound; earthquake, low frequency sound; and Star Wars, stereo sound with noise reduction, using the present state-of-the-art in sound technology

Amazing since Star Wars was only released in May of 1977. In several days the latest installment of the Star Wars saga continues with the Force Awakens...

Friday, December 11, 2015

Justin Leiter has almost two decades of experience in illustration and graphic design, starting in the apparel industry working with top licenses such as Mickey Mouse, Toy Story, Curious George, Power Rangers, Speed Racer, Monster Jam, Spider-Man and others..

Leiter has also created designs for top retailers including Target, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Sears, JC Penney, Kohls and Family Dollar...

2015.04.29 Red and Rover by Brian Basset - because I still love comic strips and this is one of the best...

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Jeff Parker is a writer and artist, having worked on the animated The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot.. In comics he has penciled Solitaire, Wonder Woman, Freex, X-Men, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Batgirl, Archie and others...

Friday, November 27, 2015

In my mind Geof Darrow is a brilliant artist, however... His table was next to Frank Cho. I picked up a book from Cho and noticed that Darrow was drawing on his table (waiting for customers). I had picked up a sketch from his creation Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot a couple of years earlier (although not on a first day cover).

I approached Darrow and asked if he would provide a commissioned sketch for me. His response was "Why would I want to do that?", I respond by explaining my collection and my admiration for Big Guy and Shaolin Cowboy. His response "I don't know, I'm kind of lazy". I pointed to a gorgeous finely detailed sketch of a dragon and said "That is not lazy", he returned with "I get paid for that", all the while kind of laying back in his chair., or a cat toying with a mouse...

I told him I was more than willing to pay for services provided, he took the envelope (Science and Technology FDC) and told me to come back in 15 minutes and he would think about it. When I returned I saw this beautiful mechanical dinosaur-human hybrid, which reminded me of HR Geiger's work, although Darrow has listed as his influences Moebius (Jean Giraud), Tezuka Osamu (Astro Boy), Herge (Tin Tin) and Jack Kirby (they worked together at Hanna-Barbera). It was a pleasure getting the opportunity to interact with Darrow, it gives more meaning to the sketch he provided.. I believe he truly loves what he does, it shows in his work....Thank you!

Friday, November 20, 2015

At the Superheroes for Hospice show I stopped at the Outpouring Comics table. I picked up a promo card for Rusty Gilligan and asked Jonathan Miller where Rusty was this day, and was told at another event, which sounded something like Pop Art Con. I responded "There's a Con for Popeye!". Michael Grassia who was sitting next to the Outpouring Comics table, yelled "I'd go to that!" and the discussion of Popeye and Robin Williams' movie started. Grassia showed me a sketch he recently did of Popeye, and this gave me the idea to have Grassia draw Popeye on a US Naval Academy cover..

Michael Grassia is an art teaches who realized his passion is storytelling through illustration and animation. He produced the child-friendly web-comic Plunger-Pup, a sci-fi adventure about a dog who fights crime with a magic plunger...

Friday, November 13, 2015

The first time I came across Annie Wu was at the 2014 NYCC. I saw a long line of fans waiting for sketches, Annie focused but quick providing beautiful artwork. I made it part of my mission for this con to obtain a Batgirl sketch

Friday, November 6, 2015

One of the special moments of attending NYCC is walking around discovering who might be at the con. Yes there is a program, but I tend not to take the time to go through it, I would rather wander the aisles. When I came to the National Cartoonist Society booth, which had several cartoonists in attendance.

One of the downsides to wandering around is not knowing some of the artist by sight. Ray Alma was taking his turn at the table so I asks what comic strip he drew. He pointed to his shirt which said "MAD Magazine"...

We discussed his doing a skeetch of Alfred E Newman, so I chose a Norman Rockwell cover. I liked the comparison of one of America's famous and loved illustrators linked to America's children choice for literature...

When I went to research Ray Alma, I was happy to see the photo on his site mimic the famous Rockwell painting of his self portrait technique..

Ray Alma is a caricaturist and illustrator. His work has appeared in magazines, newspapers and books. His contributions to Mad Magazine earned him status as one of "The Usual Gang of Idiots".

Alam won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for Best Magazine Illustration - 2009.

Friday, October 30, 2015

Greg
LaRocque is a comic book illustrator best known for his work on the
Legion of Super-Heroes and The Flash.

LaRocque
began his comics career at DC Comics and his first published work was
the story "That Which Conquers All" in Mystery in Space
#115 (Jan. 1981). Following this was OMAC back-up stories in The
Warlord #42-47 (Feb. 1981-July 1981). His first work for Marvel
Comics appeared in Power Man and Iron Fist #73 (Sept. 1981). He drew
several issues of Marvel Team-Up including the last issue of the
series. He and writer Louise Simonson launched a new Spider-Man
title, Web of Spider-Man, in April 1985. Returning to DC Comics,
LaRocque became prominent for his work illustrating the Legion of
Super-Heroes. He drew The Flash with writer William Messner-Loebs
from issue #15 (Aug. 1988) through #79 (Aug. 1993). A career
highlight was redesigning the Flash's costume to its current
incarnation.

Exiled
Studio released LaRocque's creator owned material in the three-issue
mini-series The Exiled, followed by CryBaby, Exiled Studio's first
color comic book.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Russ Braun has been working in comics for over 25 years, including time spent with Disney Feature Animation. Braun has worked on various titles including Batman, Fables, Hellstorm, Animal Man, jack of Fables, Dead Boy Detectives, Battlefields, and The Boys with Garth Ennis...

Currently Braun is working on Where Monsters Dwell, written by Ennis as part of Marvel's Secret Wars. Phantom Eagle (Karl Kaufmann) and his companion Clementine Franklin-Cox as they fly rustic bi-planes and fight dinosaurs and cannibals...

Braun took the opportunity to draw a pencil sketch of Clementine on this Eddie Rickenbacher first day cover...

Friday, October 16, 2015

After I left artist alley at NYCC I went to the main floor to wander around. When I saw the National Cartoonist Society booth, I was drawn like a moth to the flame. I found several cartoonists waiting to provide sketches, including, to my surprise, Jason Chatfield current artist on the Australian comic strip Ginger Meggs...

Ginger Meggs, Australia's Favourite Boy, running since 1921 under the guidance of creator Jimmy Banks, follows the escapades of the red-headed mischief-maker. The strip has been passed through several cartoonists - Ron Vivian (1953-1973), Lloyd Piper (1973-1982), James Kemsley (1983-2007) and Jason Chatfield (2007-present)...

Jason Chatfield besides drawing the iconic Ginger Meggs is also a stand-up comic and writes for several publications and is a New York Correspondent for ABC News Breakfast on ABC1 / ABCNews24, funny or Die, Nova 100 and The Project (Network 10)...

Chatfield although is drawing the Australian comic currently resides in NYC...

Ginger Meggs was first honored by the Australian Post July 17, 1985 as part of the Australian Classic Children's Book issue, which included Blink Bill, The Magic Pudding, SnugglePot and Cuddlepie and Elves and Fairies...

Friday, October 9, 2015

Nick Justus was promoting his newest publication Mantasy, written by Jon Carroll, colors by Juanchoo..during his Nick Justus Does New Jersey Tour...

A graduate of the Kubert School, Nick had a fantastic portrait of Joe Kubert on his DeviantArt page. With this in mind I asked Nick to draw Enemy Ace - Hans von Hammer, created by Kubert and Robert Kanigher in 1965 first appearing in Our Army At War #151. I had the chance to meet Joe Kubert, but he was not doing sketches at the time only signing books. I would have loved to obtain an Enemy Ace sketch, but I was able to have him sign a collected edition of Enemy Ace stories...

I choose the Eddie Rickenbacker cover to compliment Enemy Ace, both World War I aces, representing different side of the battle, although one is fictional...

Currently a penciller/inker at Bluewater Comics, Nick has previously worked Devil's Due...

Friday, October 2, 2015

Brittany Pezzillo is a Kubert School graduate and an illustrator from Centeral New Jersey specializing in fantasy, sci fi, horror and psychedelic themes. In addition to illustration, Brittany also colors comic books and has developed a variety of concept art.

Brittany's business card which drew me to her table...

Brittany loves to paint and tell stories, to forge new worlds and their inhabitants for all to enjoy

Clients have included AEG, Pelgrane Press, Knighthawk Games and others...

Friday, September 25, 2015

Ben Caldwell has worked in a variety of art and design fields over the years, including toy design, animation development, book illustration and comic book art.

A large portion of his work has been with Toybiz on projects that include The Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, X-Men, World Championship Wrestling and Harry Potter.

His comic work includes All-Action Classics comic: Dracula, Tom Sawyer, The Wizard of Oz, War of the Worlds and The Odyssey and on Justice League Unlimited covers, Wonder Woman children's books and Star Wars art. He is best known for his work with the Action! Cartooning series of how-to books. His work on Dare Detective comics was nominated for the Russ Manning Award for Most Promising New-comer in 2005

Friday, September 18, 2015

Lynne Yoshii is an Illustrator,
Graphic Designer and aspiring Comic Book Artist. Born in Honolulu,
Hawaii, Yoshii graduated from the School of Visual Arts of New York. She has worked as an assistant editor for Marvel and as a Graphic Artist for a toy
company.

She
is an extremely talented artist whose work and style especially when
it comes to strong female characters is simply some of the best there
is in our opinion. Based on this description and art shown on her website, her Wonder Woman is fantastic, I asked for a female character on a Marilyn Monroe fdc.. Yoshii chose to draw Emma Frost, in a Monroe pose.

During the show I overheard several people talking about Yoshii's beautiful work, and I quickly became one of them...

Friday, September 11, 2015

A
top inker in the graphic novel industry, Scott Hanna has been drawing
and inking comic books for over 25 years. His work has been published
in well over 100 graphic novels, and he’s inked over 15,000 pages
of finished black and white art.

At
Marvel Comics, Scott has worked on all the top characters, including
the Avengers, Spider-Man, IronMan, the X-Men and the Hulk including a
fifteen year run on Spider-man. At DC Comics, he worked on many major
titles including Superman, Justice League, Green Lantern and most
notably a five year run on Detective Comics starring Batman.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Archie has meet several interesting people -KISS, Punisher, Glee, TMNT, the undead and now Predator...

Written by Alex de Campi and drawn by Fernando Ruiz, this 4-part series has the fiercest hunter in the galaxy using Riverdale for his hunting grounds... (Dark Horse Archie vs Predator signed by Ruiz and de Campi)... I used the Talking Pictures FDC to tie in with Predator's film history

Predator first came to public attention in the 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger leading a special military team on a mission to rescue hostages in Central America. What they find is they are being hunted by a technologically advanced extraterrestrial warrior (played by Kevin Peter Hall). Predator was written by Jim and John Thomas...

Predator would go on to feature in two sequels as well as two cross-over films with the Alien franchise... and a fan film Batman Dead End...

Friday, August 28, 2015

Sean
Von Gorman is an NYC based comics illustrator & writer, known for
Toe Tag Riot, Secret Adventures of Houdini, and Pawn Shop with Joey
Esposito.

A
hilarious and gory tongue-in-cheek story, Toe Tag Riot is about a
punk rock band cursed to become zombies whenever they perform their
music! The band goes on a last cross-country tour in search of the
cure to their affliction, but being the ethical sometimes-zombie
punks that they are, Toe Tag Riot uses their zombie superpowers to
rid the world of racists, homophobes, misogynists and all kinds of
other nasty people. Read the LGBT-positive book that the Westboro
Baptist Church themselves accidentally endorsed and then felt really
stupid about doing! Guest appearance by Andy Hurley from Fall Out
Boy! - Previews World

Sean drew this image of Toe Tag Riots' lead Dickie Tagz in a retro style to compliment the Richie Valens stamp...

Picked up a copy of the first issue signed by von Gorman and writer Matt Miner...

In
addition to his comics work, Sean is also a brilliant guerrilla
marketer, who has been known to hand...

Friday, August 14, 2015

Kellee Riley attended the Ringling College of Art and Design.. Riley began working at American Greeting on properties such as Strawberry Shortcake, Carebears, Popples and Holly Hobbie. After gaining some experience she struck out to found KelleeArt Design Studios, LTD...

Since then she has gone on to work on may other properties including Barbie, My Little Pony, Spongebob Squarepants, Polly Pocket, Littlest Pet Shop, as has a client list of Mattel, Hasbro, Nickelodeon, Disney, Dreamworks, Random House, Simon and Shuster and others...

Currently she is most well known for being the original illustrator on Mattel's Monster High...

Friday, August 7, 2015

Steven Bowman is a comic book artist and freelance illustrator from Louisville, Ky. Bowman published his first comic "Astounding Tales Presents: Rooftops" in 2010 featuring his character the Blue Badger...

Bowman was one of those artist I was not looking for when I went to the show. Late Saturday afternoon, when I thought I was done for the day, I was wandering aimlessly and came upon Bowman's table. I stopped to look at his work and was taken by a print of a mystical musician playing an old wooden stringed instrument. A Beautiful girl at his side and a very large dragon in the background. I enjoy fantasy art but find it difficult to find the right first day cover for this type of art. Then it hit me.. the mystical musician and Jimi Hendrix. A perfect combination, as could envision him playing in the band...

Friday, July 31, 2015

Leif Erikson FDC - Icelandic explorer, the first Norse explorer, descendent of the Vikings, to reach North America c.1000, landing on the northern tip of Newfoundland, Canada...

Walt Simonson is best known as the writer and artist for Marvel Comics Thor (1983-1987), during which time he created Beta Ray Bill. Thor is based on the Norse mythological deity of the same name, the Asgardian god of thunder. Thor debuted as a Marvel character in Journey Into Mystery #83, the creation of Stan Lee, Larry Leiber and Jack Kirby. In 2011 Thor placed 14th on IGN's list of Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time..

Walt Simonson is the creator-owner of the Star Slammers title, and has worked on X-Factor, Fantastic Four, DC Comics' Detective Comics, Manhunter, Metal Men and Orion. He has also worked on licensed properties including Star Wars, Alien, Battlestar Galactica and Robocop vs Terminator, among many other titles...

July 2014, Simonson released through IDW Publishing, his creator owned series Raganrok, a version of Thor 300-years after the destruction of the nine worlds... unrelated to the Marvel character. A signed copy of Ragnarok #1, with Simonson's distinctive Brontosaurus signature

Simonson arrived at the show to sign books around 1:00. He arrival was promoted at 11:00. When he did arrive there was no line at this unmarked table (his name plate was under the table cloth).. He put down his bag and said he would be right back and proceeded to visit with Greg Hildebrandt. He then wandered over to a couple of other artists

He signed my two books (the other being the Judas Coin) and took the envelope in hand, stopped and announced he was willing to provided sketches free of charge, but would do so at 4:00 to allow himself time to sign as many books as possible.

I arrived at his table at 3:45, and the table was deserted. I waited as the line grew.. At 4:15 he arrived.. He looked over the line and announced he would first sign any books and then provide 10 free sketches, more to follow if time allowed. In order to know who was in line for sketches he stated he would number our thumbs, so no one would be missed. I held out my hand and received my number 1 on my thumbnail. He proceeded to number thumbs down the line...

Considering he was not selling anything and only brought pencils and pens (fans had to provide the books and paper for sketches), he had the right to make the rules...

When my chance had come, we discussed the sketch.. I had been trying to decided between the Marvel Thor and the Ragnarok Thor currently seen in the IDW comic. I settled on the current Simonson version.. When he completed the sketch he paused and stated "I believe this is the first time I have drawn this version of Thor. I have not done many shows since I started the new book."

I will take this as the first Ragnarok Thor by Walt Simonson outside of the IDW release!!!

This was a test of patience and the willingness to have a grown man write on my thumb!!!

About Me

I have been a collector as far back as I can remember. Stamps, covers, autographs, baseball cards, comic books, coins, political buttons, sports memorabilia, space stamps and covers, and the list goes on.
This blog was set up to be able to share a small part of my collection with anyone who shares the interest.